Bold as Love

by Gwyneth Jones

  Fiorinda had come back against her better judgement because the Heads were coming. She amused herself pondering the fate of dead metaphors, while the others played the wish-list game. What colours? ‘Mast’ could be a word for penis, and ‘nail’ means a piercing, but what are these colours Pig’s nailed to his willy? Something to do with nail varnish? Pigsty has stuck his ampallang thingy to his willy with puce nail varnish, which shows he is incredibly brave and determined. But what is this grist that the suits say we must give to their mill?, and if we’re talking about eco—warriors lying to the media, what has that to do with pots calling kettles black? When do cows come home, and what have roosting chickens to do with bad guys getting their come-uppance? What does ‘roost’ mean, anyhow…?

  We need a caring hospice for figures of speech, she decided. We should treasure our cliches and use them tenderly because soon nobody will know. Dead metaphors, dead words, words that are themselves layers of played out metaphor: the shells of dead sea creatures, sinking down and losing their shapes, getting embedded, turning into rock. Maybe cultural deracination is when no one remembers deracination means pulling something up by the roots. Or that if you do that, whatever it is will die—

  Whenever Fiorinda spoke—which she did, occasionally, to break the monotony—everybody stared. It was annoying. Martina the militant feminist never shut up, and nobody stared at her. Fiorinda was unimpressed by feminism. Experience told her that women who tried to buck the age old system were either defeated and futile, such as her mother, or easily as nasty as any man, such as Carly. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll make my own terms.

  When Ax spoke everyone laughed, including the suits, although they looked a trifle shifty as they chuckled. Presumably because his ‘provocative suggestions’ (the poor should eat shit, the unemployed should be sold as slaves) bore some passing resemblance to current government policy. It lasted a couple of hours. Fereshteh the ghazal singer sat in her black bag, like a running joke in an ironic tv cartoon, and never said a word. After the show they were bussed (nice bus, no expense spared) to a tv studio near the river, where they had a big joint interview for a current affairs programme. Sage’s loud insistence that Cornish Brythonic should be made the official language of the new English Parliament earned him cheers from the studio audience, and a good time was had by all. At the end, Allie handed out plastic per diems and told them when to come back.

  The Heads were taking Ken to Whipsnade, where the animal rights people were running a feasibility study (read: another green riot) on the freeing of wolves and other large mammals. Fiorinda didn’t approve. Wouldn’t wolves decimate or starve out indigenous predators? Like minks did? ‘Nah,’ said Sage. ‘Ax is gonna organise a supply of small children, in depots round the country: it’ll help reduce the surplus population.’

  ‘In little red cloaks,’ said Fio. ‘And pigs in straw houses. Releasing zoo animals is as stupid as your jokes, Sage.’

  ‘The helix of time has brought one change,’ announced Verlaine, the Adjuvant with the cavalier ringlets; striking a pose. ‘If this was Paris 1789, we’d all be either lawyers or journalists.’

  Chip Desmond clutched his red crest and made retching noises—

  ‘You’re out of your brains,’ Fiorinda told them. ‘More like Paris 1968. A street—party, a few burned out cars, and back to business as usual.’

  ‘That’s what I like about you, Fiorinda,’ said Ax. ‘You’re not easily impressed.’

  ‘What’s there to be impressed about? This dumb PR stunt? Please.’

  The van took off north. Fiorinda went down the pub with most of the others. Eventually Rob Nelson’s three girlfriends, Dora and Felice and Cherry, came to pick him up in their battered pink Cadillac, and she went back in the car with them and Ax Preston to the Snake Eyes house. It was easier than deciding how to get back to Reading; and there was nowhere else that she wanted to be. Rob’s place was full of Dissolution Rocksters. The only bed he could offer her was in a coffin-like closet on the top floor. It was called the Mugs Room. Actual mugs crowded around the mattress on the floor, ranked on shelves, dangling from the ceiling, stacked on the floor. Mugs in all colours, mugs adorned with witty comments. Merchandizing mugs, novelty mugs, pretty mugs, arty mugs, obscene mugs.

  ‘No one ever wants to throw one out,’ explained Rob, ‘unless it breaks. They’re a hassle of modern life. Trouble is, I said that on the tv, on a rugrats’ programme? Tryin’ to think of something non-horny to say about my homelife? So, you can guess. They mount up.’

  The closet had obviously had a long career as the doss of last resort. It looked clean but it smelt of stale vomit. Fio declined, which turned out to mean she was sharing the big living room in the basement with Ax Preston. She was surprised to find that this was where he was sleeping. She’d have thought he’d be in the penthouse suite.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ said Ax, putting aside the guitar on which he’d been doodling quietly, in the background, all through the political discussion. (Like Jane Austen, Fiorinda had thought: scribbling a novel on the edge of the drawing room table).‘You can’t sleep until everyone else has gone, but I don’t mind. I never sleep much.’

  ‘Where do you usually live?’

  ‘In Taunton, with the band.’

  ‘Is that nice, living in the country?’

  ‘Taunton isn’t the country,’ he said, frowning at the end of the spliff he was lighting. ‘it’s much worse than that. But it’s where we were born. That’s important. I want us to stay there.’

  The way everybody laughed at Ax and everybody stared at Fiorinda had created an alliance. In the Whitehall meeting and at the tv studio they’d kept catching each other’s eye, and smiling ironically.

  ‘What d’you think they want from us?’ she asked. ‘The suits, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t much care. I’m wondering what use I can make of this.’

  There he goes, she thought. Everybody’s crazy about something.

  ‘Ax…do you watch a lot of television?’

  He looked blank. ‘Never have time for it.’

  ‘Do a lot of stuff on the internet?’

  ‘Shane looks after all that. I can’t be bothered.’

  ‘Okay, do you like to eat in fancy restaurants?’

  ‘Fuck, no.’

  ‘Well, the normal people in this country do nothing else but watch tv and click around in cyberspace, whereas the ruling classes spend their whole time grovelling and scheming to get a table at this week’s top restaurant. Face it, you’ve got nothing in common with them. There’s no way you are going to get them to…to vote for you, or whatever it is you want.’

  ‘Maybe I know what’s good for them better than they do themselves.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be hard. But.’ She was lost for words. Unlike the Adjuvants, spouting radical ideas with one eye in the mirror, there was something un-self-regarding in the Ax that made his obsession more embarassing than funny. She wanted to save him from himself.

  He looked at her, narrow-eyed: off on his own angle. ‘What d’you make of Pigsty?’

  ‘He’s genuine,’ said Fiorinda, immediately. ‘He’s not putting it on for the punters, which is what I assumed before I met him. He’s just what he makes himself out to be. The kind of crass, stupid, self-satisfied libertarian bastard who would bugger a five year old in the name of free love.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with buggering a five year old,’ said Ax, in his eat the unemployed voice. ‘If the kid’s having a good time, whose business is it.’

  ‘Exactly. Yeah, you got it. That’s Pigsty.’

  They laughed. ‘But we’ll keep our opinion to ourselves.’

  The suits adored the Big Pig: so the rest of them were already drawn into this complicity. Fiorinda nodded, wondering why she would keep her opinion to herself. Why was she getting involved in this thing? Maybe it was a good career move. Maybe it filled a horrible blank.

  She had been lent a manky sleeping bag. There was a proper bed made up for Ax
on the couch, with a duvet and sheets. He gallantly offered it. Fiorinda counter-offered that they could share.

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ said Ax. ‘Thanks.’

  She glanced at the yellow ribbon, which he was also wearing today, and made a pragmatic decision, based on the irritating alternative of lying there wondering if he was going to make a move. The ribbon worked fairly well, but it was asking a lot to expect it to function when you were sharing a bed with someone you hardly knew. ‘If you like, we can do sex.’

  ‘You sure that would be okay?’

  ‘No problem. Ribbon just means you’re not looking for it, far as I’m concerned. I don’t mind, honest.’

  ‘Right. I’ll see if I’ve got a condom.’

  ‘If you want. I don’t care. I’m clean, and I’m not going to get pregnant on you. They gave me the injection in hospital when—’ She stopped, but had already gone too far. ‘When I had the baby,’ she finished, casually.

  ‘You had a kid, oh, yeah, I heard that.’

  ‘Not any more. It…he died.’

  ‘Well,’ said Ax, after a moment, ‘that was a bad break.’ He reached out, touching her for the first time, and stroked back a lock of the red curls that tumbled round her face. ‘You’ve had hard times, I know. I very much admire the way you have come through them.’

  She stared at him, like: what weird language is this?

  ‘Do you want that fuck?’

  ‘I’ll see about the condom,’ said Ax, hoping he wasn’t making a horrible mistake. But what he was doing felt right. He would go with it.

  For Fiorinda it was okay, except that he turned out to be the considerate type, whereas she was not going to get aroused by him unless he broke into her when she was dry, the way her father used to do it. She couldn’t tell him this, and didn’t feel like faking. ‘I’m going to have to masturbate. Do you mind?’ ‘Why would I mind?’ said Ax, (sounding taken aback at finding himself in bed with a girl who said masturbate when she meant wank), ‘You do what feels good.’ Then the sex was fine. They did it four more times during the night: something neither of them had expected.

  The Dissolution Festival at Reading unfolded its all-embracing programme. Rock bands rocked, circus troupes trouped, folkies folked, poets droned, stand-ups lacerated themselves and any fool else. Anything Celtic was violently heckled, in newborn English patriotic feeling. Aoxomoxoa and the Heads headlined to the usual huge, adoring, laddish crowd. The plan for bussing artists around the country to other sites did not happen, owing to crisis conditions and economic meltdown. A secret gang of personal transport wreckers haunted the parking fields, leaving every morning a fresh swathe of terminally immobilised vehicles that were a real hassle to deal with.

  Fiorinda and DARK did a miserable set on Red Stage, which was mainstage, in the rain at lunchtime. Everything went wrong, and such few people as happened to be drifting around pretty well ignored them. The next night they were indoors at the Green Room. Things were tense. They were all severely drunk, and very shaken by their Red Stage failure. Fil Slattery and Gauri Mostel were sullen, Cafren Free silently suicidal. Charm was in a savage bad temper, and Tom Okopie the bassist was too smashed to be his usual steadying influence. Added to this it turned out they had a real crowd, not hardcore DARK fans but actual punters who had heard the buzz, and maybe even bought the album. DARK were famous (relatively speaking) for fucking-up royally whenever people looked like liking them. It could have been a disaster. Instead they flipped into a state of high energy and played like demons, Fiorinda’s pure, ferocious vocals and wild guitar taking everything by storm. She was radiating. So much so that, with the set two thirds done, she looked around, caught everybody’s eye, and launched them, unilaterally, into ‘Stonecold’—her own teenage vagrant anthem, and a killer tune, which Charm had axed from the set. She couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘Stonecold’ was huge, the crowd loved it. Charm went along with the coup, face like thunder, until the end of the song. Then she came over, glaring like a demented stoat, not quite steady on the feet, and said something audible and sarcastic to her vocalist, to the effect, Fiorinda’s shitful Megastar Dad would be proud of her dirty tactics—

  Charm never mentioned the fact that the Megastar Dad had allegedly got his twelve year old daughter pregnant. Otherwise it was no holds barred, ever since she’d found out who Fiorinda’s father was.

  Aoxomoxoa and the Heads were down in the mosh, breaking the celebs/punters barrier with their usual aplomb. They had a grandstand view of what happened next: the incandescent teenager in her sparkly blue party dress, squaring up to the queen of Northern Radical Dyke Rock. Charm all mean and nasty, no surprise… But though Fiorinda may dress like the ballerina on the musical box, and may look fragile, she stands an easy five foot five in her army boots, which gives her a couple of inches over Charm; and she’s not afraid to make herself useful. Doesn’t let the height disparity worry her: hauls off and lands the demented stoat a clip that sends Charm flying, guitar howling, into a stack of amps—

  ‘Wooeee!’ yelled Sage, punching the air, ‘That’s my girl!’

  They removed themselves from the scene, however, during the stage invasion that followed. Shame to leave a good ruckus, but as George said, they’d be doing the kid no favours, giving their seal of approval to that sort of unladylike behaviour.

  DARK had an impromptu debriefing, when they’d been hustled off. They hardly bothered with the latest incident, but cut straight to the chase, the real problem, the power struggle. ‘This is my fucking band,’ yelled Charm. ‘I say what goes on the set list and that’s—’

  ‘Look,’ said Fiorinda, biting back tears of rage and despair. ‘Don’t be such a brainless shit. Okay, I wrote it, I’m sorry. It isn’t relevant who wrote it. “Stonecold” works for us.’

  ‘Fuck that!’ screamed Charm, eyes popping. ‘Who’s “us” princess? You want the same crap megabucks stadium success as your dad, and DARK is not going that way!’

  ‘I want us to get somewhere,’ shouted Fiorinda defiantly. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘FUCK YOU, daddy’s girl—’

  ‘You’re scared, Charm. You can’t stand the heat.’

  ‘I can’t stand this,’ muttered Cafren Free, pale blonde head in her hands.

  Tom stayed with Fiorinda when everyone else went off to the bus. Plump, black, cuddly Tom had always been nice to Fio, far as rock and roll feudalism allowed. Don’t let Charm get to you, he told her earnestly. It’s right-on, constant fuck-ups, constan’ revolution, freedom to flail, that’s what DARK’s about, proves the band’s integriry… But Tom was totally pissed and he was Cafren’s boyfriend. He couldn’t really be Fiorinda’s ally. Tom belonged to Cafren, DARK belonged to Charm Dudley, and Fiorinda had no place to lay her head.

  She returned to the van, where she found Sage alone, and incredibly unsympathetic. He’d seen the whole thing, and hadn’t even come backstage to back her up. What d’you expect, he said. You were fantastic, but it’s not going to get you nowhere at this fucking rate. You’re too big for Charm, she knows it, but she’s not going to hand you her band on a plate. Give her some space, stupid brat. He told her she ought to pack in the public violence or take up mud-wrestling, which was an absolute fucking cheek, coming from him. Advised her she was going to have a shit of a hangover, and left on some sexual prowl or other. She crawled into the annexe and lay there spinning, hating everyone, too proud to cry herself to sleep.

  Notoriety sometimes pays. Fiorinda snagged an invitation to do a solo gig at the Best of the Fest club, a ‘smoky late night cabaret’: where she went down a treat. She stayed away from DARK, but went to a couple more meetings in Whitehall, and spent a couple more nights at the Snake Eyes house. One chilly August morning, when the two weeks of the Festival were nearly over, she met Ax in the arena. They were both queuing to buy breakfast from a van. He was wearing that leather coat, and had a guitar case slung over his shoulder: which made her smile. See Ax Preston, see guitar.

  ‘Oh
, hello,’ said Fio. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were staying in London.’

  ‘I am, but the Chosen played the Blue Lagoon last night.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  He had refused to play the Jerusalem solo for them. And the crowd went crazy, but he still refused to play it…the howling cascades of notes singing in his head, in his fingers, in his balls, in the muscles of his forearms: but he knew it was right not to be persuaded. Better withhold, deny yourself the quick hit. He’d been thinking well, they’re not watching the telly now, (though millions were watching, punters who were scared of the Fest of Dissolution’s rep, but were still riding this wave): which had annoyed him. He didn’t want to fall into the trap of trying to impress this girl. It would be doubly stupid in her case, because Fio did not want to be impressed. It wouldn’t be like a bunch of roses if he did something she admired, it would just piss her off. He wondered where she’d been, last night. He was not going to ask.

  Keep things cool and friendly.

  ‘You next?’ said the Korean noodle man, with a smile of contempt. As usual at these things, all the catering people by now hated all their customers indiscriminately.

  ‘I’ll have the flat kind, dunno what you call ’em.’ He perused the list of fillings. ‘With the veg, ginger pickle, and seaweed.’ Fio bought a bowl of miso soup. They walked off together.